Everyone Loses Their Minds…

Without sounding melodramatic, I just want to make sure I’m clear about something. You’re free to make any assertion outside of the following conclusion regarding Clockwork Pineapple’s RMT scandal if you want to put forth the effort and back it up:

RMT isn’t RMT because it was only around an estimated $15,000 USD over a course of just over two years. RMT is also not RMT because it happens all the time in most large alliances in game. Also, I want to make sure I’m crystal clear that RMT isn’t RMT because only going after bigger entities like Somerblink count due to them getting cash for Markee Dragon referrals rather than avoiding the PLEX system altogether like Groons.

What a bunch of hypocritical, standard-bending cop outs. Your kind went on podcasts, spurged on the forums, and gave a grander stage to the Somerblink scandals than any prior scandal in Eve’s history. There it is for you now, RMT in it’s purest form. No fancy flowcharts necessary, lengthy posts from Nosy, or hour long lessons from DNS Black on Podside describing how something is RMT.

There was more debate and more uproar when we had to decide if Somerblink intentionally dodged CCP’s original intent for the implementation of (or bypasses) the PLEX system. What the problem here was that no matter where Somer trod, there was an army of Eve media out to bury the shiv deep in his back until it all boiled over because Somerblink was giving incentives for returning customers. Isk was used as an incentive to continue to buy timecodes through Markee Dragon using his referral. Much the same way as McDonalds uses the occasional free Big Mac to keep you playing the Monopoly game. But again I have to digress as this is a horse that’s been beaten, buried, exhumed, beaten some more, ran through the glue factory, and devoured by a kid in preschool. My focus is the increasing toxicity of the vocal minority of this community.

Recently, I posted up to Twitter raising concerns over what I dubbed “Groons and Roses”. Raising that subject certainly wasn’t a Paradise City by any stretch of the imagination. I wanted to see people responded to a clear case of PLEX dodging RMT committed in it’s purest form. For those not familiar with Clockwork Pineapple’s alleged RMT scandal discussed on Failheap-challenge, you can get the TL;DR version over at [redacted].

Now I went into this expecting a somewhat divisive result in comments and support, but overall I expected the same kind of lynch mob mentality that erupted over Somerblink. What I got was the exact opposite.

“I don’t think a small NPC alliance RMTing is a bigger story then what was effectively CCP-sponsored RMT” – Lord Blaze

“You’re an idiot. These guys are small time.” – pepper2k

Wow…nomad please. On the positive side of things, I did find some gems over on the Reddit thread posted by Duckslayer. Overall, I’d have to say that the one fixation that people seem to want to raise first is how much Pedalar made. Apparently, $15,000 was unimpressive. Personally, I don’t care if it was only $15. RMT is RMT, right? I mean we went after Somer after flowcharts and economic interpretations finally convinced the community that they were RMT’ing again. This doesn’t need flowcharts or a degree in economic theory. Right there, in front of your face, and the low life keyboard Rambos can’t put down their flag for two seconds…much of the SAME ones that (if they could) would have probably hamstrung Somerset personally and danced a jig around the tree from which the rope was hung.

TheMittanidotcom, who by their own admission “We tend not to run stories with ‘alleged’ in the title.” – @DanDanikov

Really now? You were quick to let Angry Mustache pin that nasty ‘alleged’ word to Somerblink back in August. The term ‘allegedly’ appears at least six times in TMC article titles. As a point of fact, I pull up ten pages of results (approximately 100 stories) where the word alleged, in one form or another, was used to describe certain details in stories where all the facts were not yet known. So save us all the uppity and holier than thou attitude. If you don’t want to run it, just say you aren’t going to run it. But for heaven’s sake, don’t hide behind arrogance as if reporting on alleged illicit activities is somehow below your pay grade. Seriously, it doesn’t become you.

Double standards aside, I have to give credit to [redacted] for posting the story. In the past, I’ve been very critical of both the type of stories they run and some of the staff writers (especially posts made by [redacted]). Whether or not CCP chooses to do anything about it now is up to them. Duckslayer, EN24, and myself did our jobs. No, I don’t believe the “nobility” of Duck as the whistleblower in this case, but it doesn’t matter. An alliance in this game who is arguably associated by standings and alt sharing with the largest coalition in the game has some damning evidence to answer for.

Overall, I’m disappointed with the community response to this. Apparently, someone needs to be both space rich and have a micro-lottery site in order for people to care whether or not someone might be committing RMT. Next time, I’ll make sure to post flowcharts.

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One thought on “Everyone Loses Their Minds…”

I think you should blame CCP that we don’t rage as we did during somergate (twice). Until today I don’t feel like Somer did receive his ban for doing RMT. Why? Because CCP never said that it has been RMT and banned him for publishing internal emails only. I don’t feel like CCP is interested in fighting RMT anymore -> no need to rage about RMT.
“Give me xxx$ and win the next promo/jackpot/whatever” – that’s perfectly save RMT where players donate ISK to someone who is handing them over to the buyer while cashing out $. Wow. Just wow.
And CCP is like “we call those gambling sites ‘content creators’ and help promoting them”.
“It’s not about the message… it’s about sending money!” to misquote the Joker.